


On sleep and insomnia

by serenitysolstice



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: F/F, a character study of ann walker?, brief mention of sexual assult, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 17:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19213765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenitysolstice/pseuds/serenitysolstice
Summary: Ann Walker doesn't sleep much.A character study of Ann Walker.





	On sleep and insomnia

Ann doesn't sleep much.   
  
Some nights she closes her eyes and sees stars flash through the darkness, can hear entire galaxies dancing in her mind's eye. If she brings herself to relax, she feels herself falling into the cosmos, becomes one with the universe, allows it to fill her up inside. On these nights, when she does eventually drift off to sleep, she has wild and spectacular dreams and often wakes with tears in her eyes at such indescribable beauty. Ann prefers the stars she sees in her mind to those in the sky - the colours and shapes she sees fill her to the brim with an excitement she's never known before. The night sky, with its vast emptiness and tiny, hopeless pinpricks of light that she sees from her windows hold no such promise for her, cannot capture her imagination in the same way.   
  
There are the nights where she cannot fall asleep, try as she might. She lays in a ball at the very edge of her bed, waiting for sleep to claim her. All she has is the weight of the coverlet over her head, a familiar ache deep in her chest, and her own soft breaths as she struggles to breathe through the darkness. Her head feels heavy; on these nights the silence suffocates her, she does not risk leaving the warm darkness for fear of the world around her collapsing into a living nightmare. She hides, and awaits the return of day. At least when the light returns, she can throw herself into sewing, and painting, and waiting on her family. She can ignore the way she breathes with lungs that are not her own, she can pretend that the world around her is not slipping from her grasp.   
  
There is the occasional night, brought on by an ill-advised visit to a long time friend of Ann's, where she herself is the cause of sleeplessness. Ann refuses to close her eyes, forces herself to count numbers in increasingly creative ways, in an effort to avoid feeling the hot breath against her throat, the hand that burns against her skin. She can feel him against her neck, underneath her fingernails, against her thighs. She imagines bathing in lye, taking a washboard and scrubbing the skin that has him on her away, until the only part of her that remains is nothing but pure Ann Walker. She refuses to close her eyes because when she does, it plays over and over in her mind, a series of rolling images that has her choking on her own tongue. So Ann counts. She paints, when there is light enough from the fire to do so. She knits. She does not sleep.   
  
There is one night, in amongst all the other sleepless nights, that Ann Walker could sleep, if she wants. It would be foolish of her to say that she feels more at peace now than ever before, because that is not the case. She knows the beast waits for his chance to singe himself on her skin. She knows the next night of oppressive apathy lurks around the corner, to sink her into another cloud of utter hopelessness. But right now, Ann's heart is lighter than it's been in a long time.  
  
Tonight belongs to her. To whispers in daylight, to stutters and whimpers, to "everytime I come here". To a thumb against her lips, the softest touch Ann has ever known. Her heart beating so furiously she's sure Anne must have been able to hear it, in the suspended moment of secret confessions. She can feel her gaze, afraid, hopeful. She feels the warmth through her veins, her tongue leaden in her mouth, her throat dry. Desperately trying to get the words out anyway, begging Anne to understand what she couldn't put into words. Ann knows she's always been prone to moments of emotional weakness, moments of hysteria. Feeling overwhelmed is nothing new to her. Such a desperate surge of warmth, however, with Anne's undivided attention on her, makes her grin into her pillowcase, cheeks still pink. She doesn't know if she's frightened, doesn't yet know if she has a reason to be.   
  
That night, Ann Walker sleeps with a smile on her lips and dark eyes haunting her dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> I only saw Gentleman Jack four days ago, but I would die for Ann Walker. She deserves so much better than history and her own time gave her.
> 
> I know this is a little short compared to my other fics, but it's my first fic for Gentleman Jack, and I have a lot of feelings about this moment, okay?


End file.
